Science World Blog Slow and Steady Forms a Fossil
Slow and Steady Forms a Fossil
Last Updated (Monday, 06 April 2009 13:41) Written by Raymond Nakamura
The other day, my 4-year-old had me re-enact the Tortoise and the Hare with her at home. She crawled around wearing her turtle backpack while I hopped ahead in bunny ears. After I flopped on the couch for a nap, she crawled ahead to victory.
I was rather dubious about the locomotory ambitions of turtles, but recently, some scientists stumbled across a 90 million-year-old fossil of a turtle of Asian descent, on an island up in the Arctic, near Greenland.
Back then, thanks to volcanoes spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the world was a toasty place. Freshwater lakes sat on top of the salty, ice-free Arctic ocean, allowing critters like this turtle to migrate from volcanic island to island over the top of the world and into North America.
The Chinese used to look at turtle bones to tell the future. This turtle fossil tells a lot about the past, and perhaps, if we let climate change continue, about how things could be in the future.
Also: Evolution Festival Cake Contest Feb. 12.
Speaking of change, this year is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin (Feb. 12) and the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species. If you like baking or evolution, you could participate in the Vancouver Evolution Festival's contest for the best evolution-themed birthday cake for Charles Darwin. I wonder if an ice cream cake made of Chunky Monkey would count. Let me know how you do.
